Mark Ruffalo is very good as a serious and driven corporate lawyer in Cincinnati, Robert Bilott, who works diligently for a firm accustomed to protecting the interests of corporations, but, because of a family connection, he ends up taking on chemical behemoth DuPont for poisoning a town in West Virginia a couple of decades ago. The legal battles in this true story played out over 15 years, and as you may guess, going up against a very large and powerful corporation, especially in a company town, does not win you any friends. Bilott begins to feel the heat even from his mostly understanding boss (Tim Robbins) and his colleagues, who cut him some slack at first but worry more and more about the consequences for the firm as time passes. A real-life example of regular people doing courageous — heroic? — things. Thankfully, director Todd Haynes engages neither in hero-worship nor melodrama — for a legal thriller, the story is told in straightforward way and is all better for it.
